Ciena Posts Slimmer Q1 Loss

Having already warned investors of recent weaknesses in revenue recognition, Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) met its lowered fiscal first-quarter sales target Wednesday by reporting revenues of US$416.7 million for the three months to the end of January 2012, only slightly below average financial analyst expectations. (See Is Ciena's Miss a Cause for Panic? and Ciena Lowers Q1 Guidance.)

It also announced a net loss for the period of $47.7 million or 49 cents per share, though this is at least an improvement compared with the year-ago quarter. (See Ciena Posts Fiscal Q1 Loss of $47.7M.)

Its losses after one-time costs (adjusted, or non-GAAP loss) amounted to $16.5 million, or 17 cents per share, worse than the adjusted loss of 5 cents per share that analysts had anticipated.

"Our first quarter revenue does not reflect the underlying strength of the business and ongoing customer demand," stated Smith in the earnings release issued early Wednesday. "We expect sequential revenue growth in the fiscal second quarter, and we anticipate that our operating results for the second half of fiscal 2012 will be stronger than the first half."

In fact, Ciena expects fiscal second-quarter revenues to be in the range of $435 million to $460 million, while adjusted gross margins (after one-time costs) are expected to be in the low 40s, so not much different to the 41.9 percent reported for the fiscal first quarter.

This appeared to be enough to appease investors (at least while they supped their morning coffees), as Ciena's share price leaped by 7.8 percent, to $14.49, in pre-market trading Wednesday morning.

Ciena, of course, is just one of a number of vendors battling for attention at this week's OFC/NFOEC 2012 in Los Angeles, where the company is showing off its new WaveLogic 3 chip. (See Ciena Pushes Ahead to 400G.)

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